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Weeks before Hart' s Local Grocers will host its own ribbon-cutting celebration, the much-anticipated East End supermarket cut the cake for a man who worked at the original Hart's chain many decades ago.

A small group gathered inside 10 Winthrop St. on Thursday afternoon to wish Herb Ouzer a happy birthday. The resident at The Summit at Brighton turns 100 on Saturday. General manager Dean Sparks presented Ouzer with a gift certificate for $100, which he can use when the store opens later this summer.

"I"ll need the cart to pull this about," says Ouzer (pronounced OH-zer), who looked trim and fit in pressed khaki shorts and a blue golf shirt and sneakers and sat comfortably in a lawn chair as construction crews stopped their machinery for the small media event.

Ouzer's first job out of high school was delivering groceries for Hart's. At the time, the chain had stores in neighborhoods throughout the city.

Ouzer went on to become a manager at two Hart's locations: the first, on North Clinton Avenue near the train station, and the second, on Clifford Avenue between Avenue A and Clinton.

The food business was much different. "Everything came in bulk. Butter came in tubs and we had to cut the butter up into pounds. Potatoes came in big pork barrels and had to be weighed. Sugar had to be weighed. We had ice boxes, not refrigerators, ice boxes," he says.

He and brother-in-law Morris Testa later bought Star Fruits & Vegetables on Culver Road, where the Golden Fox Family Restaurant now stands.

"Some people would come in with their kids, so I always threw a little extra bubble gum in the bag," Ouzer told the new Hart's staffers in a previous interview.

Given Ouzer's history with the old Hart's stores, his son Marc contacted the new store about his father's upcoming birthday.

Asked what he thought of a new Hart's coming to the center city, Ouzer remarked, "Our uptown is getting to be built again, it's coming back to life. I think the store will be fit right in with the neighborhood."

According to Hart's Local Grocers' website, the original Hart's store was founded in the late 19th century and had 113 locations by 1929. The chain became part of the Star Supermarkets conglomerate in the 1960s (though the Star store Ouzer ran had no connection).

Communications director Andrew Katz says the 20,000-square-foot store will open later this summer between The Little Theatre and Restaurant 2Vine. It will carry local produce, dairy, meats and baked goods and a wide variety of prepared foods.